Here’s a draft of “Impacts of Climate Change on Milk Production in the United States”, a new paper I’ve worked on with Eric P Salathé Jr and Guillaume S Mauger of UW and Tamilee D Nennich of Purdue. Note that this is a working paper that has not yet been published.

Abstract: Climate change is likely to affect milk production because of the sensitivity of dairy cows to excessive temperature and humidity. We use downscaled climate data and county-level dairy industry data to estimate Holstein milk production losses in the conterminous United States. We find that there is significant geographic variation in production losses and that regions currently experiencing the greatest heat-related impacts are also projected to experience the greatest additional losses with climate change. On a national level, we project that climate impacts could reduce end-of-century milk production per cow by 6.3% relative to baseline production.

Feedback welcome! And FYI we also have a spreadsheet with county-level data that we’ll make available at some point (probably after publication) but is probably available upon request.

PS. Some acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge the skilled assistance of Robert Norheim in providing GIS analysis and maps used in this paper and of Hye Jin (Jenny) Chang in gathering dairy industry data. This research was supported in part by the Climate Impacts Group of the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean under NOAA Cooperative Agreement No. NA17RJ1232.

PPS. Thanks to an article about our paper by the UW News and Information’s Nancy Gohring (“Got milk? Climate change means stressed cows in southern U.S. may have less”, July 11, 2012), we’ve gotten a bit of press (see below), of which the most hilarious is undoubtedly “Washington College Students Rally to Protect Cows From Global Warming”, which attributes the research to “University of Washington economist Rainbow Moonglow Rabinowitz.”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/12/another-mooooot-press-release-cows-and-climate-change/

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/07/another-moon-pluto-cows-freak-out-about-global-warming/54469/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711122909.htm

http://www.ivillage.com/climate-change-may-cut-cows-milk-production-south/4-a-472418

http://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/hd/30495

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/07/12/climate-change-may-cut-cows-milk-production-in-south

http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-to-cause-milk-shortages-2012-7

http://news.yahoo.com/climate-change-may-cut-cows-milk-production-south-200513237.html

http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?Docid=666625&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.bighealthtree.com/news/nutrition,24/climate-change-may-cut-cows-milk-production-in-south,185947.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NutritionNews+%28Nutrition+News%29

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Climate_change_means_stressed_cows_may_have_less_milk_999.html

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/health_news_detail.asp?health_day=666625

http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/cows-make-less-milk-in-hot-sticky-weather/

http://eponline.com/articles/2012/07/16/got-milk-climate-change-means-stressed-cows-in-southern-us-may-have-less.aspx

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/s.aspx?exp=1&u=http%3A//www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/07/climate-change-could-lead-to-less-milk-production.aspx

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/of-climate-change-cows-and-california-dreamin/

http://www.sciencecodex.com/got_milk_climate_change_means_stressed_cows_in_southern_us_may_have_less-94796

http://phys.org/news/2012-07-climate-stressed-cows-southern.html

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/07/11/got.milk.climate.change.means.stressed.cows.southern.us.may.have.less

http://humanitariannews.org/20120711/got-milk-climate-change-means-stressed-cows-southern-us-may-have-less?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/california-climate-change_n_1680585.html

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/3437/20120717/climate-change-stresses-out-cows-lowers-milk.htm

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/06/643891/study-climate-change-will-reduce-milk-production-from-us-dairy-cows/